This volume advances the understanding of the Zapotec script, one of a dozen or so different graphic systems so far identified in Mesoamerica. Zapotec writing constitutes one of the earliest scribal traditions in Mesoamerica; it also has one of the longest evolutionary trajectories. An understanding of this script and of its historical development is important for elucidating the genesis of writing in Mesoamerica. Its relevance for the comparative study of writing systems can hardly be exaggerated.

This discussion considers the iconographic features and radiocarbon dates of two small wood figures reportedly found in the vicinity of Texcoco. One figure represents the water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, while the other, a nude male figure, may represent a rain deity.

“For the first time since Maudslay’s magnificent studies of the turn of the century, we have a publication in which new Maya materials are adequately published. Good photographs and easy-to-consult large-scale foldout drawings…This is a detailed and successful attempt to utilize all of the available information, calendrical, mythological, and historical, to reach as full an interpretation as is possible.” American Antiquity

Frederick Field discusses the distribution and possible functions of Pre-Columbian sellos. This title includes illustrations of the designs on sellos from Pre-Classic Tlatilco and Las Bocas and Post-Classic Colima and Guerrero.

The prevalence and influence of “theming” increased so dramatically during the 1990s that theme parks have become a metaphor for postmodern urban life. In particular, critics apply the term “Disneyfication” to any landscape developed to communicate with several audiences, especially when that communication is an attempt to stimulate and direct consumption. While scholars have prepared numerous explorations of this phenomenon, few scholarly studies focus on the landscapes intheme parks. This volume’s authors examine current and past, public and private, obviously and subtly themed landscapes in Asia, Europe, and North America in response to this worldwide development.

Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, 20

“An extremely clarifying book. . . . The author demonstrates that artistic and historical sense cannot be brought out of the remains of [important sites] without putting the artistic analysis first. . . . A great contribution to Olmec-Maya scholarship.” Latin America in Books

This is the first comprehensive treatment and pictorial record of one of the greatest bodies of sculpture in the Pre-Columbian world. Parson’s work orders the Late Pre-Classic sculptures of highland and Pacific coastal Guatemala into chronological and stylistic groupings, relating them to the other artistic and iconographic movements at the time the Maya style was coalescing.

Chiaki Kano considers the archaeological materials from the pre-Chavín cultures and the relationship between these early cultures and Chavín, and traces the changes in artistic style from pre-Chavín to Chavín using the feline motif as a base.

“The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan is an excellent new analysis and synthetic interpretation of most of the principal gods of the ancient Maya, clarifying and demystifying their forms and functions in a rigorous, scholarly manner, while simultaneously conveying some sense of the numinous powers they represented for their devotees.” Science

Lazaros of Mt. Galesion was widely recognized as a star of contemporary Byzantine monasticism by the time he died in 1053. His reputation for sanctity rested primarily on his extraordinary perseverance as a pillar ascetic, as he spent the last forty or so years of his life on top of a column on the barren mountain of Galesion.

The vita of Lazaros, here translated into English for the first time, was written shortly after his death by a disciple, Gregory the Cellarer. The vita makes it clear that Lazaros’s reputation was questioned during his lifetime and reveals the existence of a sometimes startling hostility toward him on the part of local church officials, neighboring monasteries, and even his own monks. It is a refreshing piece of hagiography that provides a fascinating and unusual glimpse into the dynamics of the making, or breaking, of a holy man’s reputation.

In Pasztory’s iconographic analysis of this deity, she discusses representations traditionally associated with the rain god Tlaloc. Two rain deities in the art of Teotihuacan are also identified: a Crocodile-Tlaloc associated with earth and water, and a Jaguar-Tlaloc associated with water, warfare, and possibly a sacrificial warrior cult.